This article will cover frequently asked questions regarding custom materials within SimScale. Additionally, the workflow on how to set custom materials is discussed.
- What if we don’t have a specific material to choose from SimScale’s material library?
- Can we add new materials to the list manually? – Yes
- Can we upload material properties into SimScale? – No, users cannot import properties directly into SimScale, but can manually edit the properties to match the required material.
Default Material Library
SimScale provides some commonly used materials like Steel, Iron, Aluminium, etc by default.
Default materials include both solids and fluids according to the analysis type selected.
To find out which analysis types are possible in SimScale, click here.
Custom Materials
To define a specific (non-existing) material for the simulation, pick an existing material from the library and modify its properties as follows
As an example from Figure 2, pick Aluminium from the default list of materials and change its properties to a Stainless Steel 316 variant. Once done click on the checkmark on the top right and save. The same goes for fluids too.
In SimScale, the Conductivity type settings are found within the solid Materials tab in the simulation tree. A total of three options are available:
- Isotropic
- Orthotropic
- Cross-plane orthotropic
Find here how to configure the Orthotropic and Cross-plane orthotropic settings.
Note
Generally, the material properties are provided by the manufacturers or referred from research journals respective to the application.
Always ensure the accuracy of your assigned material properties for a reliable simulation.
To read more on materials in SimScale click here.